EPISODE 44
Do you struggle staying regulated this time of year? Maybe you have more anxiety around holiday events? Feel high expectations from others and have a hard time setting boundaries?
Juggling real life and the “magic” of the season can feel exhausting. The financial pressures and pressure to make new goals as the new year approaches is a lot.
I address all of this and more in today’s episode. This is part 2 of a mini series more candidly answering 10 listener submissions to the question: What do you struggle with most in the winter or around the holidays?
Join me for my largest community event next week! More details here: https://riseaswe.myflodesk.com/nye23
Here’s the full list of the 10 holiday support questions:
The first 5 questions were answered last week, and the final 5 today. Thanks for being here friend. I’m sending you so much hope & healing.
Website: https://www.riseaswe.com/podcast
Email: amanda@riseaswe.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandaontherise/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandaontherise
EPISODE 44
Do you struggle staying regulated this time of year? Maybe you have more anxiety around holiday events? Feel high expectations from others and have a hard time setting boundaries?
Juggling real life and the “magic” of the season can feel exhausting. The financial pressures and pressure to make new goals as the new year approaches is a lot.
I address all of this and more in today’s episode. This is part 2 of a mini series more candidly answering 10 listener submissions to the question: What do you struggle with most in the winter or around the holidays?
Join me for my largest community event next week! More details here: https://riseaswe.myflodesk.com/nye23
Here’s the full list of the 10 holiday support questions:
The first 5 questions were answered last week, and the final 5 today. Thanks for being here friend. I’m sending you so much hope & healing.
Website: https://www.riseaswe.com/podcast
Email: amanda@riseaswe.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandaontherise/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandaontherise
0:00
Welcome to regulate, and rewire and anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong. And I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now let's dive in.
0:28
Hey, everyone, if you were here for the last episode, you'll know that today is a continuation of 10 struggles that you wrote in listeners. You being the collective for those of you who listen to my podcast who follow me on Instagram, I asked what it is that you're struggling with the most this time of year or around the holidays. And I brought that down to a list of 10 submissions that I felt were pretty representative of all of the others as well. And for last week, I recorded and responded to all 10. And then I looked at the timestamp and it was well over an hour. So what you're getting today is I split that recording into two pieces. So you got half the submissions and answers last week, and half of them are coming. So in a moment if it feels like I jump abruptly into submission and answer without a whole lot of context. Here's your context. And if you look in the show notes, you'll see a list of all the 10 submissions that I've answered between last week's episode. And this week. So you can know if you didn't join last week, take a look and see if there's anything that you might want to listen to or to start there. If not, there's nothing last week that you have to know in order to get value out of being here with me now. So let's go ahead and jump right back in to me offering support for the things you all wrote in and said you're struggling with most this winter.
2:02
All right, submission number six, be being activated or shut down or holiday gatherings and anticipatory anxiety of events.
2:15
So first, maybe try some of the things that I just mentioned. Also, what I find to be most helpful for me, and what's helpful for a lot of our clients is to have a way to give yourself breaks. You can always go to the bathroom. Nobody really questions that it's almost embarrassing to take note of like how many times somebody's gone to the bathroom? Like why are you why are you bothered? Why are you bothered by how often somebody else is going to the bathroom. And when I'm starting to feel overwhelmed at gatherings, the bathroom becomes a bit of a safe place. For me, it's a place where I can shut the door. Or at least if I'm in a more public gathering shut a stall door, I can pause. That's a place where I can do some regulation practices if I want to do them without being noticed. And just really take some time to give myself a timeout and to pause. I also like to find ways to step outside, I have taken many, many of imaginary phone calls, I have gone to look for something in my car that I know really isn't there.
3:17
So what you can do it just proactively give yourself permission and a strategy for how you can take breaks. And if you have a safe other like a partner or a sibling or a parent that you can confide in, it might be helpful to have a secret signal that you can give them. And maybe they can help facilitate you taking a minute away, or maybe even join you in that moment away as a co regulator for you.
3:43
And to that last thought of anticipatory anxiety. My favorite way of working with anxiety is to think about it as an overestimation of threat, paired with an underestimation of your ability to manage that threat. And I like to support clients in playing with that second piece of the equation first, under estimating your ability to manage those through that threat or those stressors that event that gathering. And so asking yourself the question of how can you feel more confident in your ability to manage the what ifs, having a plan on how you can take breaks might help. I also love to entertain the option of not going even if I know I'm going to go, I like to entertain the option of not going just because it helps to reiterate to my nervous system that I do actually have a choice here. And that grandma or whoever are responsible for their own feelings of disappointment if I don't show and I try to come up with at least one good reason even if it's a place where I have a lot of reasons why I don't want to go can I come up with at least one good reason why I do want to go and if the only reason I can come up with is so that somebody else isn't mad at me. That's no longer good enough reason for me to attend or to do anything. I've Gotta be able to come up with something more sincere and authentic to that. So see if you can come up with any other reason that you want to go. Or it feels important to you to go. And even if it changes nothing about the actual event, that sense of choice, helps your nervous system to feel more safe, and hopefully can settle some of that anticipatory anxiety.
5:25
And I also think it can be really helpful to think about how you're going to go about supporting yourself in resetting from the event. So before we go to event that I know is going to be unsettling for me, I think about okay, after that event, what can provide a reset for me, and this provides context for your system, that you're not going to be stuck in that overwhelming event or state forever. So you get to that place where like, Okay, we're going, and here's why we're going. And I know that this will likely be a lot for my system to handle. So I'm giving myself those permissions to take breaks. And here's how I might do that. And I will be doing X, Y, or Z to wind down after that event, maybe it's I'm going to take a bath, or I'm going to go for a long walk, I'm going to take a day off work, whatever it is that you need to help reset from that extra stress load of those gatherings.
6:21
All right, just a few more. Number seven, how do I manage the expectations I have for me, and the expectations others have for me, saying no feels like failure.
6:34
Saying no is always going to feel like failure, if your measure for success is other people being pleased with you. And I understand why that might be a measure of success. If maybe at some point in your childhood saying no wasn't an option that you were the Peacekeeper in your home, whatever it was. Is it possible that your current reality is not the same as the past reality that that gave you this pattern that gave you this measure for success being other people been pleased with you. So my invitation here is what if you spent some time to give yourself a new definition of success and what that looks like around the holidays. And I happen to know that the person who submitted this is part of my rise membership. So for the next few minutes, I'm no longer speaking generally to all of you, if what I have to say applies and speaks to anyone else listening, that's amazing. But now I am speaking directly to you. Miss you know who you are? How can you redefine success? I want to invite you to take some time on your lovely porch and maybe journal or bring this into coaching because I would love to support you with this live in person as well. Asking yourself, what are the expectations that you really have for you? Versus the expectations that you have for you because other people have or have had them for you? Do you already know some of the expectations that others have for you that aren't going to feel good for you this year. And if you do is there a way that you can proactively communicate that things will be different understanding that they might be disappointed, sad, mad, whatever they get to feel however they want about it. And you can have your back with how things need to be different for you. Because you've redefined what success looks like. And then the trick here, the practice here, the rub here is going to be getting really good at taking breaks to regulate when you feel uncomfortable at not meeting everyone else's expectations because it's not going to feel comfortable, especially when you're new to this practice of not self sacrificing to depletion. And also note some maybe zoomed out perspective.
9:11
They your family members, they don't often meet your expectations either. I happen to know that you raise those Gremlins well, and maybe you have expectations that they'd be more considerate or helpful or understanding or whatever. But they're, they're young, and we're all a little selfish when we're their age. And we all live life through our own agendas and lenses. So some of this might be also about acknowledging that you feel a bit frustrated about that too. And that's okay. And that's normal. It is your job to manage your frustration and it's their job to potentially manage any of their own annoyances in response to you doing what you need to do to do things differently for you this holiday season. So just giving you permission to do To do that differently, and again, I would love to support you in in managing a lot that goes with that inside our community.
10:09
Number eight reads juggling real life with the quote magic of this season is so exhausting.
10:19
Yes, and you choose the juggle this season doesn't have to feel magic for you, if you if it doesn't, first of all, take that pressure off yourself, the season doesn't have to feel magic for you. That's not something you have to force. And you also get to decide how you try to cultivate some of that magic if you choose to. So full transparency friends, I'm I'm a little exhausted this year, we're going on a big trip. And I have been working a lot, a lot, a lot of hours so that I can be in a place where I feel like I can really take that time off. Also, I'm really lucky my husband has been on paternity leave. And that's facilitated me being able to step into work in a greater capacity we don't have childcare figured out yet for when he goes back to work in January. So I'm also trying to like work like a maniac to get ahead so that we have some buffer. And I, I just didn't have it in me to do a lot of the extra magic making the share. I love Christmas lights. I love it. We didn't put up Christmas lights on the house this year. I just put a couple strands on the bushes out front. I didn't do a whole lot of Christmas shopping. I in fact bought my kid I think two things and the other presents he'll get our gifts that he got from grandparents or aunts or uncles. I'm putting underwear in his stocking that he needs anyways, with some gummies that I still have from Halloween. Don't judge me friends who all have Halloween candy. Still, you just might not still feel good about putting it in your kid's Christmas stocking but he's three, he's three, he doesn't eat anything. And he doesn't know the difference between two presents or 22 Christmas presents, he doesn't know the difference between gummy bears that I bought at the store yesterday are the ones that he got for Halloween. And my baby is getting pacifiers because the dogs keep finding and destroying them.
12:21
I'm not putting a lot of pressure on myself to make this year any bigger than I have the capacity to make it. And instead I'm trying to focus on these little moments. I feel like a magic moment for me was walking my toddler just after dark a few blocks to a nearby 711 to get hot chocolate and we talked about Christmas lights on the few houses that we passed. This was a small moment. It was maybe 30 minutes of my time to walk in there get our hot chocolate walked back.
12:51
Magic this year feels like telling my husband to not stress about buying me presents and instead to figure out how to mail my Cutco knives in so for those of you don't know Cutco knives have this like lifelong warranty where you can send them in and get them sharpened at any point. And it's been on my to do list for two years to figure out how to get my knife sharpened. And so this year, I just want you to take the mental load off, figure out how to do it make it happen while we're on vacation. So I can come home to freshly sharpened knives. That's it.
13:24
The magic is coming from taking away these expectations of magic and making it in the small moments that I have capacity for this year. So if you're feeling exhausted, do less because there's no magic and feeling exhausted.
13:39
Number nine. Struggling with stress around finances.
13:45
I'll keep this one short set expectations and boundaries around the shared gifts are optional. Travel is optional. In my family with my siblings, we draw names. So there's only one gift to get. my kids just get a few things and I don't buy gifts for friends. And so if you can just sit down, if it's just you making these decisions, are you and a partner and just be real honest around? What can we do that doesn't feel stressful for us? And how can you make that be enough? How can you have your back with those decisions this year?
14:17
And drumroll number 10 The last submission of things that you were struggling with was this pressure to make new goals.
14:27
And I would invite you to pause for a minute where's that pressure coming from? Obviously society new year new me etc. And what I might want to offer instead is a process that I've been loving these last handful of years and I'm calling it just regulated reflection. And it's just me taking some time to pause and reflect on where I currently am in my health my healing home business motherhood partnering these different arenas in my life reflecting on where I am compared to where I was in a compassionate, even celebratory way. A and then ask myself, Where do I want? Or what areas of my life do I want to look different and what is different look like. And then I can set some really attuned goals or intentions from there. And this is actually something that I would love to support all of you with as well.
15:20
On December 28, at 8pm, Eastern Time, I will be hosting my fourth annual New Year's Eve circle. And this is a virtual event that powerfully combines ritual and tradition. With nervous system regulation and release, we are going to breathe together, celebrate, reflect release, journal, burn our fears. And it's completely free. This is my biggest community event of the year, it's one of my favorite things to host during the year, and, and whether this year has felt like your best year or your worst year or something in between, I promise that there is something for you. In this event, it is going to provide so much safe space and holding and practice and community. Someone shared after last year's event, they wrote me a message and said, I want you to know that I look forward to this event every single year. It's the perfect balance of magic and science. And it's the most supportive I feel in my healing. And someone else wrote in and said, Amanda, I can't even begin to tell you how much I look forward to this event every year. Last year was one of the hardest years of my life. And last night held so much peace and healing for me. Thank you. So this is my invitation for you to join us it is going to be an incredibly holding and powerful event, especially for those of you who can make it live. And I will drop a link in the show notes where you can learn more and sign up to join us.
16:57
So boiling this extra long episode down to these three tangible takeaways.
17:04
Number one, it makes sense to feel how you feel about things. It's hard because it's hard. Asking yourself what can I do to support myself in this heart just a little bit better?
17:18
Number two, do less, do less and ask yourself if there was one way for me to do less this year, so I wasn't so exhausted, what might that look like? And then do that thing, or at least do some version of that thing.
17:34
And take away number three is final invitation to join me on December 28 at 8pm Eastern Time for my fourth annual New Year's Eve circle event.
17:47
That's it for today. I hope to see you there and thanks for being here.
17:54
Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside rise my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space or apply for our one on one anxiety depression coaching program restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here. And I'll see you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai